


Cast in Stone

by wynnebat



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Future Fic, Getting Together, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 18:33:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5386109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To think, people would kill for this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cast in Stone

**Author's Note:**

> Originally [posted on tumblr](http://wynnebat.tumblr.com/post/133958262063/5ish-minute-fic) for the 5 minute fic challenge. 
> 
> Plot events are ambiguously canon until after Allison's death. Timeframe is some ambiguous time ten years in the future. I've officially thrown up my hands and decided _canon what canon_ is a great basis to write fic on.

_To think, people would kill for this,_ Stiles thinks. The object that lies on the ground in front of them—unwillingly abandoned by the witches they'd only just barely managed to defeat—is small, only a hand's size of gleaming white stone. It wouldn't be out of place on a rocky beach. And yet, thirty people had been killed to create it. For the witches, it had been an acceptable loss.

They've circled it, the whole Beacon Hills pack, but now that it's there they don't know what to do.

Stiles stands motionless. He's not planning to touch it.

"This is stupid," Malia says. She makes no move to pick it up.

"I could take it," Scott offers. He looks scared, more so of this piece of rock than the murderous witches. Stiles can't blame him.

Still, he snorts at Scott's words. He doesn't need to say the word they're all thinking: Allison. Isaac has the same reason, maybe. Derek has a few more. Lydia's already been bound by fate into a banshee; Stiles doubts she wants yet another tie, a permanent one. The others… They've all got their reasons. But they can't just leave the stone here for just anyone to pick up. Who knows what could happen. They need to stick it somewhere no one can find.

Stiles looks around one more time before taking a step, breaking the line of the pack. Someone has to give in.

"Are you sure?" Derek asks. "It could be..." But he trails off.

There's no one in Stiles' past whose heart this could break. He's had a couple flings throughout high school and college and beyond, but there hasn't been a grand love story to ruin him.

(That's a lie. He has something quiet, the kind of thing that sneaks up on you without saying boo. It just waits to be noticed. And even if no one on the planet knows of it, it's still a tale that yearns to be told. But when a lie is told so many times, it almost sounds like truth.)

And above all, he's curious. Stiles has never been able to reign it in, this need to figure out how things work. How the human body works, how werewolves differ, how magic exists in this world. He'd left Beacon Hills at age eighteen and completed a degree over on the other side of the world rather than just across the country like some of the other members of the pack. He'd traveled. He'd struck deals with witches and stolen long-forgotten grimoires and flown with just his own body and found out just how much blood a human body could lose and still live. There isn't a powerful magical place in the world that doesn't bear his footsteps.

He'd been the last to come home to Beacon Hills. But when the call of family, of pack, and of a man he'd only talked through letters for years came, he answered it happily.

Curiosity hasn't killed him so far. He'll take the chance.

Stiles reaches down at takes the stone in with a cloth-covered hand, ignoring a quiet, strangled sound from someone nearby. The witches hadn't lied, he realizes as the stone begins to burn through the cloth. It won't bear to be picked up by anything other than human skin. When the fire reaches his skin, Stiles just barely stifles his cry. It burns more than phoenix fire.

But within seconds, the pain vanishes. Stiles looks down and there's not a single burn on his hand, and his skin is back to its former winter-chilled state. Stiles slides the stone in his pocket.

"I'll give this to Deaton tomorrow," he tells the rest of the pack. But no one's listening. Nearly everyone's eyes are on his wrist. The area's covered by his long sleeves, but Stiles has a feeling that if anyone's got telepathy powers, they would've revealed themselves with how intently his pack's staring. Rolling his eyes, he says, "Hey, my eyes are up here."

"You're not going to check?" Scott asks.

Stiles shakes his head. "Not with you lot around. It's private."

"After seeing you naked, there's not much that's private around here," Lydia grumbles, but she doesn't press.

Stiles ignores the idle conversation around him as the pack heads back toward town. His thoughts are a mess. _What if it worked? What if it hadn't?_ It's not like he really needs to know. The rest of the world falls in love and gets married and has kids, all without knowing for sure if they've found the right person. Soulmates aren't a concept they'd even known about until this group of witches. It had been a shock, to find out they were real, but unable to be recognized without the aid of an orb of souls.

 _What if it worked, and it's the name of someone he doesn't even know?_ It would almost be like not having the mark at all. He's not about to track down some poor guy or gal and stutter out an explanation of how he's not a creepy stalker who got a tattoo of their name on his wrist, really.

By the time they reach the edge of the forest, say their goodbyes, and get into their mostly separate cars, Stiles has nearly convinced himself that he just won't ever look at his wrist at all. Fate's an uncomfortable enough concept that he doubts anyone would blame him, though he thinks a couple members of the pack might eventually ask him to let them hold it to learn the name of their own soulmate. Some of them are more romantic than others, more accepting of fate.

He drives without consciously going anywhere. By the time Stiles comes to himself, he realizes he's only a block away from his favorite diner. Comfort food it is. A familiar waitress and comfortable sixties decor greet him as he walks inside. His usual spot is taken, so he grabs a booth in the back and relaxes into it.

A moment of small talk with the waitress later—"Don't tell my dad I was here! We've got a deal about eating healthy."—and two meals are on the way. Comfort food for himself and the usual of the man whose car Stiles had noticed through his rearview mirror.

"You're not a very good stalker," Stiles says, once Peter finally joins him.

Peter sits down across from him, their knees knocking lightly together as he settles in. There's not much room beneath the table, or so Stiles tells himself as Peter's legs remain tangled with his. Warmth spreads from the spots where they touch, but it doesn't reach his cheeks. It just stops somewhere in the vicinity of his heart. (And his groin, because Peter's hair is mussed from the wind and the fighting, his shirt torn even further from its v-neck state. Like the rest of the pack, Stiles has seen Peter naked in the occasional ritual they'd been roped into—magic users, as a whole, are a kinky bunch with nudist tendencies—but there's something special about seeing Peter just like this.)

"Please. I know better than to stalk you when you're in that damn car of yours."

"It's a work of art."

"It has magical color-coded flashing lights for everything you could think of and is a headache-inducing eyesore. Did you—"

"Baked lasagna," Stiles says.

"Good. I'm starving." With a speculative look, Peter asks, "The salmon?"

"Beef steak," Stiles corrects. The situation is much worse than just a salmon one.

Peter huffs. "You're being ridiculous. Is this really worse than the time a warlock stole your sperm?"

" _Tried_ to."

"I remember too much running and shouting for it to have been just an attempt."

As usual, Stiles just counters with, "He was a terrible warlock. It only counts when it's sperm he can actually do something magical with, and the sperm in his ass wasn't nearly pure enough to do something with." But Stiles' sex life had in fact taken a small downturn after that incident, much to Peter's delighted ribbing. "And of course this is worse."

"It was your own choice. You could've let Scott play the hero. He's quite good at it."

"He'd get Allison's name and both of us would be wrecks for the next month. You know I'm no good when he's sad."

"You're obnoxiously codependent, yes."

"Don't worry, I love you more."

"Lies," Peter says, but it's gentle.

Stiles has never chosen between anyone and Scott, not really. Not aloud. But both he and Peter know who Stiles wrote to most during his years away, who he spends so much more time with, and maybe who he's even falling in love with. It's an unspoken, quiet thing between them, just beginning to bloom. Stiles' heart skips more than just a beat as he realizes he may have stopped what could've happened between them. Would Peter still want him, if another man or woman's name is forever on his skin? He hadn't realized before touching the stone just how much he wanted it to be a specific person.

"I could always just never look," Stiles says, a little desperately. "Denial's a healthy choice."

"You wouldn't survive. The knowledge would just itch at you forever."

Stiles scowls because he knows it's true. He knows himself well. Peter does, too. The universe better know Stiles just as well, he decides, because otherwise he'll find a way to file a complaint. He's prepared to be angry as he finally pulls up his sleeve and looks at his wrist. It's deliberately angled away from Peter's eyes, but Peter can still see the way Stiles' eyes widen a little as he reads the words on his wrist.

" _Well_?" Peter asks after a long moment. He drags the sound out, too.

As Stiles looks up from his wrist into eyes the same color as the letters on his skin, all he can think is, God, he loves this man. This man, who is apparently his soulmate.

By the time Stiles speaks, all the stress of before has been replaced with happiness. "You know, I can't really make it out, but I think it could, you know, be along the lines of Peter Hale," he teases.

Peter's touch is gentle as he takes Stiles' wrist in his hand. Rubbing his finger over the words, and over Stiles' pulse, he says, his tone not bearing an ounce of its usual sarcasm, "The universe has good taste."

The first time Stiles feels Peter's lips, they're touching the inside of his wrist, caressing the letters. Later, by the time their food arrives, Peter's moved into Stiles' side of the booth. Their kiss is anything but soft, as the multiple people clearing their throats remark. And much, much later, Peter kisses the words again, and sinks a mating bite over them as Stiles pulls him close.

**Author's Note:**

> (And then Peter touches the stone, too, and to the uninformed they just got matching tattoos to proclaim their love but to the supernaturally aware it's like half holy crap I'm not messing with that kind of magic and half where do I get that shit too. News gets out. Supernaturally aware people start flocking to Beacon Hills, not to terrorize it but to touch the stone. Stiles accidentally starts a soulmate revolution, but it's all good. Probably.)
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Complete; no sequel planned.


End file.
